Welcome aboard!
This month, in addition to my short story news and recommendations, I’m treating you, my subscribers, to an exclusive story. Two Passengers, which gained an honourable mention in the Writers of the Future contest (Q4 2021), is published here for the first time.
It’s a story about climate change, robbery and survival. Enjoy.
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Two Passengers
The wind whipped across the black Atlantic and battered the speed boat. Ze lifted her head and searched for the automated ‘ghost’ ship through the dark. “There,” she said to Zachary, “that glow right ahead. Cut the motor and we’ll drift in.”
He stayed on the throttle, frozen in position. “Cut it!” she said. “Do we need to go over the whole plan again?” The wind blew his dreads into a cat-o-nine-tails and Zachary screwed up his eyes against the spray. He finally took his hand off the throttle but didn’t turn to meet her eyes. It didn’t matter that he was nervous, tackling a ghost ship on your own was suicide.
As the boat drifted in to avoid triggering the ship’s defence system, the true scale of the task ahead became apparent. Ze had never seen a ghost this big — a massive tanker delivering goods to the billions of people crammed onto what was left of the American landmass. Their boat attached its magnetic dock to the hull and the ghost smashed the ocean breakers.
Ze fired the grappling wire and its robotic claw clutched the deck rail. She moved her hand to her belly, careful to avoid letting on to Zachary. Nothing yet. Not for a few more months. With a deep breath of night air, Ze thought of her husband, Dre, and the others making a stand on Station X — the last piece of Barbados above water. They were counting on her to ‘liberate’ the desalination filters from the ghost so they could be self-sufficient. Food supplies had dwindled and they couldn’t spare fresh water for irrigation. As they drifted, the spray tingled her skin. She watched as Zachary zipped his jacket against the wind. When they were children, and Barbados wasn’t sunk under seas risen by melted polar ice, the lush surroundings of Mount Hillaby were home. He’d looked out for her, defended her from the attacks of prettier girls and helped her study without asking for anything in return. Now she had to look out for him.
Ze was toughened by months of struggle, but she couldn’t carry the weight of Zachary and the gear bag, so he would have to operate the grappler. She’d stolen supplies with Dre before, but nothing on this scale. Timing was everything once they boarded. She handed Zachary the grappler and told him to listen to every damned instruction she gave or he’d go down with the ship.
He turned and said, “Hold on.” She put her arms around his shoulders. Before she could protest, he leaned in and stole a salted kiss.
Normally, she would have done more than put a hand on his chest and gently push him away. The hot fire of the kiss travelled down through her throat, her belly, and rooted down into her toes. Why now? She needed his strength and agility, not his mixed-up feelings. What they had was worth more than kisses — it was history. “Stay focused. We’ve got to get in and out fast.”
Zachary was still lost in the magic of the kiss. “Sorry, I just . . .” His head swayed with the rocking of the boat.
She held him by the shoulders. “Get to the engine room, input the reroute data and we’ll be out of there.” She reached for his hand and gripped it. As she did, Ze pressed the button on the grappler and they travelled up the starboard side of the container.
From the upper deck, Ze located the faint twinkle of Station X to the starboard side. Back there, thirty others depended on her knowledge of botany and her ability to grow cereal. Getting the desalinator would be the easy part. Exiting the ship would be much harder, especially with Zachary coming along for the ride. Way beyond the station, in the swirling currents of the risen sea, was the Bajan Sink. Robot ships were programmed to steer well clear of the giant maelstrom, but this was where they would direct the container to a watery grave. That way, no questions would be asked about missing desalinators, and there would be no consequences for Station X. She tossed Zacahry a communicator. “From the second we open the bulkhead, we’ve got five minutes to get out.”
Ze made her way to the loading bay doors and motioned for Zachary to follow. He knelt at the door, shielded from the wind. Although he had practised, he fumbled the thermite and had to repack it. Ze stood back and watched the fireworks as the reaction spat orange-hot sparks over the deck. He might be a pacifist who had never broken the law before following her to Station X, but he had worked on boats before. The door buckled to reveal a square hole left by the thermite. He locked eyes with Ze, then crawled through and stepped onto a loading platform. Ze followed with the gear bag.
“Five minutes before the gas triggers,” she said. Ze set the timer on her communicator just as the breach alarm sounded inside the vessel. There would be a team dispatched from the mainland, but the ship would be long gone before they arrived. She checked her pocket for the chip Dre had given here. Still there. She trusted his coding, just like she trusted Zachary’s commitment. “Find the engine room,” she said. “Once I’m in the ship’s system, you’ll be able to alter the course.” Zachary turned to her, almost blinding Ze with his headlight. “Just follow the noise,” she said, gripping his hand. He withdrew his hand, jumped down and squeezed through the gaps between containers.
The ghost ship was a massive cargo hold — no need for floors, rooms, seats, signs, cabins, or much equipment. Mechanical loading arms bordered the top of the bay. The servicing platforms were the only way to navigate. Apart from the low hum of the engine, it was eerily quiet: no sounds of circling birds, or howling winds or pounding waters. Just two passengers and an entire ship.
Ze ducked under the loading arms and moved along the platform towards her target. As high-value items, the desalinators would be stored in the strong-box compartment towards the bow. Her thighs burned from each squatting step. The ship’s defence against intruders was simple — nerve gas released at a pressure which would eat through clothes and skin — but in the five minutes grace it gave for human error, Ze could take what she wanted.
The beam of her head torch found the silver box, about two meters square. It had taken Dre months to acquire the access codes on the darkweb. He had to take the speed boat miles from Station X because of the signal blackspot the government imposed. It took a few months more for a vessel carrying the right equipment to pass close enough. And now, it was up to her and a nervous station mechanic.
She inserted the chip and waited — three, two, one. Green light. Ze threw back the door and rifled through the inventory until she found the filters. Two pumps, about the size of diving tanks. They would convert enough water for years.
“Zachary, Zachary, do you copy?”
“Go ahead.”
“Got them. Three minutes to exit. What’s the engine status?” She held her breath. Had the navigation codes worked?
Ze pictured Zachary, his dreadlocks swinging while he checked the displays. On the end of the walkie, deep in the ship, buried under hundreds of containers, Zachary finally replied. “There’s no way to jam the tiller. It’s tamper proof.”
“Has the course changed?” If it hadn’t she would have to abandon the stolen pumps to avoid serious charges. Between them, Dre and Zachary could pull this off.
“I’ve found the manual override.”
Her heart quickened. “And?”
“. . . New routing detected,” he said, quietly.
Ze clenched her fist. They had hijacked a three-hundred-meter vessel and steered it towards disaster. She hated the thought that she was sinking supplies that people relied on, but there would be other ships. Her people were suffering now. Soon they would starve, and all because the Mount Hillaby station was declared an illegal settlement. Stubborn locals who didn’t leave after they watched their homes go under the ocean would never leave. The government didn’t even have the guts to send the army, they just turned off the signal and hoped the last group would starve into submission. Ze smiled. “All right, compadre. Withdraw to the extraction point.”
Zachary didn’t reply.
“See you at the bulkhead. Hurry.” Still, radio silence. Ze moved along the platforms bolted to the ship side.
“Hey, Ze. You remember why you call me that? Compadre.”
Ze heard the pounding of the pistons over the radio. She slowed her pace but kept heading to the exit point. “Sure. That time we walked in the botanical gardens, with the plants getting sicker from the salt groundwater, you asked me to be your girlfriend.”
“And you said I was more like a compad—”
“Get moving, boy. We’ve got ninety seconds.” Why wasn’t he out of there already?
“Ain’t going to be your compadre anymore . . . you have to go without me.”
Ze’s mind rifled through the possible situations: the engine room door had locked shut, the navigation codes hadn’t worked, or he was going to ride the ship into port and take the fall. Either way, he was trapped. At least in the engine room he’d be safe from the poison fumes. “Zachary. Zach. Don’t.” She choked on the words. In less than sixty seconds, she would choke on toxic gas as it ate through her skin, into her bones. Why had she let him convince her? Dre should be there, not him. Ze buried her frustration, her love for her friend and the memories they had shared together. She slung the desalinators over her shoulder and continued toward the door. Thirty seconds.
A crackle on the radio. “Hey Ze, you there?” Was she going to find Zacahary standing on deck, outside the bulkhead, laughing at his masterful practical joke? The engine whirred and hummed. She held the communicator to her ear. “I gotta stay and see this through. Navigation won’t change without me holding the manual override key in place.”
Manual override key. Dre didn’t mention that in his plan. Surely there was some solution.
“Can’t jam it. Besides, it’s too late to get out. If this thing doesn’t go down, they’ll send a tactical force to shut down Station X. It’ll all be for nothing.”
Ze had to think. She scrambled through the hole in the giant metal loading doors and the biting wind almost knocked her back inside. She steadied herself. “You’re safe from the gas in there, Zach. Just ride it out.”
“No. Manual override is why I took Dre’s spot. I couldn’t let you both put yourselves in danger . . . I know about the baby.”
Her heart sank. It didn’t matter how he knew. He knew and he was willing to give his life for two years of fresh water.
“Get the filters back to the station and give the kid a chance. The first citizen born on New Barbados. Grow him up with the crop.”
She would have laughed if she wasn’t so cold, so numb and exhilarated and scared and proud and embarrassed and anxious. Ten seconds. Ze struggled to lift the thick sheet of cut metal back into place on the door. She took one last look and closed the hatch.
A few years back, they had stolen a boat together. Well, she hotwired the engine and he kept watch. It was back in the days before defence systems were lethal. Abandoned boats drifted in marinas which once hosted rum cocktail parties and superyachts. The day Dre was ordered out of his house and sent to the refuge, Zachary had been there for her. They took the boat around the entire island, reminiscing about the people they knew before they were flooded out. They talked about the beauty of the palm beaches, the people that walked there and the lost souls of now-sunken towns. The circumference of the island was once one hundred kilometers. That night it took them just an hour to navigate.
A pressured hiss inside the door ended it. The five minutes were up. Although he was sealed in the engine room, the gas now separated them. She had left Zachary behind. Ze stepped right to avoid the gas escaping from the door breach. “I made it out compadre,” she said. “Don’t you go anywhere.” Ze looked into the howling dark with her flashlight, trying to imagine how far the raging whirlpool that would sink the boat was. How long did he have left? She steadied herself using the deck rail and slid along to find the grappling wire. The others at Station X would stand in silence, listening to her explanation of how he had single-handedly taken control of the tanker and let it drag him down for their benefit. All to stop them starving. All for her baby’s benefit. Ze sensed that somehow they already knew. The communicator communicated nothing. Ten seconds more. Thirty. One minute. Nothing. She slammed the metal wall of a container with an open hand and held her scream inside. Then, with the desalination filters under her arm, Ze climbed outside the deck rail and lowered herself to the speed boat with the grappling wire.
Big swell rose and fell and spray pelted the cockpit. Wet through, Ze slid under the storm protector and touched her thumb to the console to start the engine. She shivered. It would be a sickening ride back to Station X, even with the automatic stabilisers. She took a few breaths then clicked the radio.
“At least you finally got to steal a boat. A big one, too.” She heard him laugh into the radio. “Feel like a pirate now?”
“You’re the one who got the treasure. Now get gone.”
Ze thought about telling him how much he meant to her, even though she didn’t love him like he loved her. She wished she could get the words out. In that moment, with him on the vessel, and with raging waves, hard steel and poisonous gas between them, she could not even say that the other pioneers loved him, that he alone had made their new life possible.
“Get out of here, Ze.”
This time, she replied. “You know I’m gonna name the baby Zachary.”
The radio light remained off. Waves rocked the little speed boat. The ghost powered steadily forward.
After a few seconds, Ze detached the magnetic tether and started the journey back to the station. For the first kilometer, she thought Zachary might call. He did not. Ze braced against the pitching and rolling of the boat. She clutched the stolen filters tight and imagined the pull of the ocean, dragging the massive ship and all of its precious cargo and poisonous gas down, down, and under.
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News
Herr Friedrich’s Fabulous Kabarett and Bin Day were longlisted for the Reflex Fiction Prize (Q3 2021).
The Fisherwoman and other stories earned high praise in this review by UK author and publisher Judy Darley.
Here’s a quick-form round up of my writing in 2021:
Completed stories - 12
Completed books - 1
Stories published - 19
Books published - 1
Longlistings - 4
Shortlistings - 4
Runner up prizes - 2
Competition wins - 1
Award nominations - 1
Although I’ve written fewer stories, 2021 has been a year a growth and learning. I’ve taken courses and and attended countless talks and webinars thanks to the magic of Zoom. Also, I aim to finish reading fifty books by 31st December. The title story from my collection The Fisherwoman and other stories was nominated for a Pushcart Award, which was perhaps the highlight of my writing year.
Recommendations:
Short story - Frankenstein’s Monster is Drunk, and the Sheep Have All Jumped the Fences by Owen Booth.
This heartfelt and wonderfully weird story won last year’s Moth Short Story Prize. It’s one you won’t forget in a hurry.
Collection - Sky Light Rain by Judy Darley
This collection of short tales is startlingly beautiful. The prose is arresting, poetic and includes so much longing and space. This is the work of an accomplished poet exploring the world of short fiction.
Novel - Violet’s War by Rosemary J. Kind
This story sets the struggles of an emerging women's football team against the backdrop of WWI. Violet is a character that we really root for (even if she is a bit reticent to get on the pitch and play). The story drives you along at pace.
Flash fiction: The things I found out about cats that made me face up to the truth about you by Amanda Saint.
The title says it all. It’s great.
Audio: Call by Rachel Fulton
This was my favourite story from the Sunday Times/Audible Short Story Award 2021 shortlist. I’m still quite annoyed it didn’t win. You can listen to the stories by subscribing to Audible.
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That’s it for this month.
Next time, I’ll tell you about a forthcoming 2022 publication of mine, and we’ll take a look at the short fiction landscape.
Here’s to wishing that you receive many many books this festive season.